the bodies are gone
so
today
i write
about the cleanup crew
those who see what we do not
and perhaps never will:
the desks
the white boards
the closets
o yes and the floors
how do they feel
when they kneel down
to pick up
the spattered scattered books
lunch boxes
artwork
finally
the dried chaos of blood
they must mop up
what do they feel
when they go home
when they open the door
when they sit in their easy chair
and drink their first stiff drink
Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, US Catholic,Commonweal,The Christian Century,Presence, Prism, and several anthologies. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2017 and 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published by Press 53 in 2015. Five of the poems were set to music and performed at 92Y in New York City on May 11, 2021.
Photo credit: “Mopping Up” by Steven Usher via a Creative Common license.
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Track the nation’s mass shootings at the Gun Violence Archive—and what a horrible shame that the site exists.
The Gun-Seller
By DS Levy
A young man travels out of state where it’s possible to buy a gun, no questions asked. He buys an AK-47. The transaction is easier than getting the driver’s license that allows him to navigate across the desert highway. If you want his story, read his manifesto on Instagram. This story is unbelievable, as are all true stories. The man who sells the gun has a daughter who attends the same university as the young man who buys the gun (hereafter known simply as “the shooter”). One morning, the shooter storms the campus, and as he scatters shots randomly the gun-seller’s daughter comes out of her English class and in a synchronous flash that Hollywood would turn into a dramatic slo-mo shot steps into the path of a bullet. Killed instantly. The young man continues his rampage, his AK-47 a scythe mowing down anything that moves. Of course, this story ends, as they all do, with the shooter getting killed. Afterwards, news agencies rush to the campus; if it bleeds, it leads. TV screens flash hand-wringing families and friends, offer the politicians’ sound-bytes of thoughts and prayers. The next day the sun comes up. A new day. Headlines scream “Gun Control Now!” The next day, we want to know who the shooter was and why he did what he did. By the third day, we worry about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, whether they’ll ever get back together. For the bereft gun-seller, the days are one, long, interminable day. For him, there are no jump-cuts, no “and in other news” transitions. In his heart, he knows his loss is divine retribution, that he’s sacrificed his own flesh and blood for greenbacks. Weapons, bump stocks, bullets in exchange for burnished gold. TV journalists clamor for interviews. But he’s not speaking. Not even to his wife, who finally walks out the door and never looks back. The gun-seller becomes a hermit, lives a miserable life. He gives up his gun business. Still, he keeps an arsenal in his dark basement. Every afternoon he goes out to the field behind his house and aims at a target with the shooter’s image. A marksman, he plugs the kid between the eyes every time. The old oak tree swallows the bullets. Eventually, the gun-seller goes to the basement and fires a pistol into his mouth. They bury him next to his daughter. The oak tree lives on, pushes up new green, tender limbs between the seeds of lead.
DS Levy’s writing has been published in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Columbia, New Flash Fiction Review, Little Fiction, Brevity, The Pinch, and others. Her collection of flash fiction, A Binary Heart, was published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press.
Which of my relatives
will point out how
I was raised humanely,
in a house with a yard
where I could pick
blueberries I grew myself
or sit on a blanket in the grass
when it was warm?
And who will tell them that’s good because it was,
the humane life, I mean—
how I had constant
opportunities to play
or nest or use my voice,
how I carried myself
into spaces I believed
were beyond assault?
Who will ask whether
the shot was clean,
whether I suffered,
whether I was harvested
responsibly afterward,
my blood stretched far
as a rainy day envelope
or my daughter’s love?
Will the shooting be
diagnosed as a symptom
of Bad Day Disorder
or Disappointment Fever?
Will it be the opposite
of having died in vain?
Sweetheart—may I call you that?
you will, after all,
be the last to change me—
how long will I survive
after we meet?
Abby E. Murray is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal publishing work concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. She is the poet laureate for the city of Tacoma, Washington, where she teaches community workshops for veterans, civilians, military families, and undocumented youth. Her first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and will be released in September 2019.
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Myna Chang writes flash and short stories in a variety of genres. Her work has been featured in Daily Science Fiction, The Copperfield Review, and Dead Housekeeping, among others. Read more at mynachang.com.
Editor’s note: The photo of a child with a weapon, marketed for children, is used for purposes of noncommercial commentary, satire, and education under the Fair Use Doctrine.
Fine People
By Paul Colton
Based on Martin Niemöller’s confession-turned-poem, “First they came …”
First a fine man killed six Sikhs in a Wisconsin temple
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not Sikhs
Then a fine man murdered black worshippers in Charleston
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not black
Then a fine man ran down counter-protestors in Charlottesville
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not lefties
Then a fine man slaughtered 11 Jews praying in Pittsburgh
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not Jews
Then a fine man assassinated Hispanics in an El Paso Walmart
but Republicans will not act decisively
because they’re not Hispanic
Soon fine people will come for pale-skinned moderates
but then it will be too late to stifle
their seething hate and assault rifles
Paul Colton has been writing about life’s vagaries for thirty-plus years. His poetry and essays have appeared in more than 75 magazines, literary journals, and poetry anthologies, including The Literary Hatchet, The Satirist, and The Moon magazine.
My mother found Jesus.
He was on sale at the Walmart
in El Paso.
Mom is on a budget because
no one pays her any money
to play pretend.
When she prays
to the plastic Jesus
with a ninety nine cent sticker
cemented to the back of his robes
at least she means it.
Alicia Cerra Waters is a writer and educator. She lives with her husband and son.
Good Mourning, America
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt
It’s eighth-grade writing class day and the weekly morning jaunt to my favorite little school, nestled in a rural Southern California valley. Here, the water table’s level prevents developers from bulldozing nurseries and groves, and there’s still a farmer’s grange. A canopy of Live Oaks shades my drive to the school, where the children of immigrants are the dominant demographic. My child went to school here, transferred from our very-white hometown, so she’d no longer speak disparagingly of the Latinx kids on the playground. She didn’t understand back then that she’s one of them.
Today, my students are learning to make notecards for a research paper on climate change. The assigned article that challenges their English can no longer be found on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
“What did you all find most surprising about the article?” I ask.
“That the U.S. is the second biggest producer of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming,” one of them answers.
The students are smart. Smart and so young and hopeful. All but two or three of them want to attend college. They all have plans for the future. Here, in the United States.
They finish up their notecards.
“‘Heat stress is the leading cause of weather-related death in the Southwest, and heat waves are increasing in frequency and intensity.’ That’s a direct quote combined with a paraphrase,” a student says.
“Nice work! Now, before I go, let’s talk about the homework for next week. Please complete—”
An alarm blasts.
“We have to stop,” the classroom teacher says fast and loud. “That’s our emergency response signal. Everyone, under your desks, away from the windows. Quick. Nope, leave your stuff. Get down now. Manuel, I can see your head. Rosa, you’re visible from the window. Get under the desk—under! I don’t want to have to say it again.”
It’s an active shooter drill.
The signal blares while I tuck my laptop into my briefcase, and down the dregs of my coffee. The students are giggling, sprawled on the floor—the perfect opportunity to make quick contact with the objects of their desires. The teacher tells them to cool their jets.
“Okeydoke, nice work today, everyone,” I say. “See you all next week.”
There’s more giggling as I leave. The alarm continues pulsing danger. I hear it—feel it—on the way to my car.
• • •
It’s another day, a Sunday, my writing day. But I can’t.
Five mass shootings in twenty-four hours.*
El Paso: Twenty dead and twenty-six injured. Now that’s twenty-one, now twenty-two.
Dayton: Nine dead and twenty-seven injured.
Memphis: One dead and three injured.
Chicago: None killed but seven injured.
Chicago: One dead and seven injured.
Numbers and names and the detritus of lives litter parking lots and store aisles and nightclubs and theaters and playgrounds and schools. Shootings are linked to hate websites, to Donald Trump, to manifestos, to mental illness, to familial discord, to immigration, to feminism, to news media, to the grotesque availability of guns.
So I wonder.
Which of my students will I be able to save when we have our school shooting?
How many of their heads will I be able to shove under desks before they are seen?
How many of their young bodies will expire in pools of blood, their cries for their mothers interrupted?
Will I die with them?
I wonder, because today, in this nation, with this president, with this Congress, with this NRA gun lobby, it feels inevitable.
Editor’s note: The Trump in Guns photo was allegedly posted by one of the shooters on 8chan.
Fourteen Reasons to Love America the Beautiful
By Tori Cárdenas
Worn flags fall and burn / as bumper stickers / beer cans /
boardshorts / truck nuts / red visors and head coverings /
and hearts purple-swelling with pride / beneath twisted
knuckles
Paint your storm windows / with razor wire / and the
blessed blood of the unborn / seal out / pungent spices and
peppers / from your doorways / restrooms / defend your
borders
It is her fault / their fault / his fault / someone else’s
problem / Reduce to the common denominator / it is the
restaurant on the corner / serving anything but a burger and
fries
Bring your boots / your pipes / your fatigues / bring them
into the town square / to wage war on people who call it a
‘plaza’ / no room for foreign shit here / isolation is survival
Grab ’em by the pussy / treat ’em like shit / fuck their
daughters / they’re begging you / unless their chests are flat /
those ain’t the raping kind / lock them up / uptight lesbians
Circle one: true or false / if follow-up: false / if red: true /
false: blue / no news: good news / the best news / no news
to speak of here: true / not: false / don’t read all that fake
shit
They’re bringing drugs / they’re bringing rape / they’re
bringing crime / and sin and pestilence and parasites / Gas
their children begging at the nation’s bottom / and fuel the
swampy top
And yea, the Lord said, “Shoot the snowflakes / the
women / the children with brown skin / for they displease
your Lord God Almighty / on his golden Mar-a-Lago”
Cover your assets / for the end times are coming / store
your gold beneath the eaglet down of your pillows / when
your coffers runneth empty / a street of walls will meet you
You can survive on nothing / you’re still buying SPAM,
aren’t you / what about the dollar menu / it may not nourish
your cells to overthrow this epidemic / but you can still
make us money
It’s all a hoax / this climate shit / make it warmer / so we
can bust heads on the beach / blow up the schoolhouses /
teacher bullshit / gimme a pencil / sos I can black there eyes
out
Bring back the hanging / decorations / bamboo shoots are
the new manicure / Full page ads of black brown blue
babies / withered elders / toss them into the rivers / erase
them
Hey bro / got a job for you / the boss lets us drink and fuck
anything we want / don’t forget your golf clubs / got a seat
for you right here / with a guzzler helmet / and two cold
Coors Lights
Vote / your voice matters / we’re listening / psst / we want
to know what you think / it’s your right / pass the earplugs /
you fought for it / don’t you want it anymore / pussies /
Poetry editor Tori Cárdenas is a queer Tainx/Latinx poet from Northern New Mexico. In 2014, she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English, with a concentration in Poetry. She returned to UNM in Fall 2017 to earn her MFA in Fiction. She served as Blue Mesa Review‘s 2018-2019 Poetry Editor, and serves currently as the 2019-2020 Editor-in-Chief. Tori’s work has appeared in Conceptions Southwest, VICE, Pantheon Magazine, Writers Resist online journal, and Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018, and it has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and a Pushcart Prize. Her works were also featured as finalists in the 2018 and 2019 Rabbit Catastrophe Press Really Good Poem Prize contests. Tori lives with her dog Sophie in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Editor’s note: The photo of the U.S. flag pistol is used for purposes of noncommercial commentary, satire, and education under the Fair Use Doctrine.
What Then?
By Kathy Lundy Derengowski
And what if the next
crazed school-shooter
is the security officer,
with a long gun
and a long memory
and a short temper,
who is tired of smart-ass kids
who call him “rent-a-cop”
and mock his lumbering swagger?
What if one too many of them
have flipped him off,
and his wife just left him
for another man or woman
and his credit card is maxed out
and his own children never call?
What then?
Kathy Lundy Derengowski is a native of San Diego County. She is an active member and co-facilitator of the Lake San Marcos Writer’s Workshop. Her work has appeared in Summation, the ekphraisis anthology of the Escondido Arts Partnership, California Quarterly, Silver Birch Press, Autumn Sky Daily, Turtle Light Press, and the Journal of Modern Poetry. She has won awards from the California State Poetry Society and been a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards poetry chapbook category. She has been a guest blogger on Trish Hopkinson’s site.
